


drought

by weatheredlaw



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Fever Dreams, Flowers, Found Family, Gen, Hallucinations, Homesickness, Mild Language, Post-Season/Series 14, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 08:56:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16082762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: “I want to be like a plant. I want to have roots. I want to be somewhere and grow. Is that...do I sound dumb?”Wash smiles. “No. You don’t sound dumb.” He stands and reaches out to brush the hair from Caboose’s forehead. “I wish I could grow some roots, too.”or: Caboose finds a proverbial oasis in the desert, and processes the end of the war.





	drought

**Author's Note:**

> school's keeping me from really writing like i want to, but here's something i've been working on

_I wish I was innocent in a bad way  
_ _But I’ve found you don’t come after soldiers  
_ _Unless they were yours in the first place_

 

* * *

 

“God,” Tucker mutters. “What the hell happened here?”

“A war,” Wash says bluntly. “Come on, we need to make sure Hargrove’s men didn’t leave behind anything dangerous.”

From their right, Simmons calls out, “ _I found a land mine. Does that count as dangerous?_ ” and Wash sighs. “Let’s spread out, radio if you find something you don’t think you can handle.”

“What like a bomb?” Grif asks. “You didn’t say we’d be taking apart bombs.”

Wash doesn’t say anything. Caboose thinks that’s for the best. He trails after him for a minute before Wash turns around and says kindly, “Can you handle that building over there on your own?”

Caboose feels his chest swell. Lately, Wash has been giving him better jobs, better things to do, more independence. He likes this. He likes being trusted. He likes knowing he can do something.

“I can handle it,” he says, trying to act very cool. Wash nods. Caboose hopes he’s smiling behind his helmet.

“Alright. Let me know if you find something too dangerous in there.” He turns and heads toward another building. Caboose steps inside.

He knows the satellite settlements around the capitol were evacuated ages ago, and he knows the pirates nested in them like rats, trashing things and setting fire to buildings just for fun. Their less than better natures show in the graffiti they scratched on the walls and the furniture they set on fire. The photos they destroyed. Caboose bends down and picks up one that was spared — a photo of a boy and his mother, smiling for the camera.

In that moment, he misses his own with a painful fury.

He keeps moving through the bottom floor before finding the stairs. There’s a terrifying moment when the stairs almost give out, but he goes slow and keeps making his way through the building, checking the rooms and trying to rescue little things he finds, but remembering sadly he doesn’t really have the space.

“ _How’s it going, Caboose?_ ” Wash sounds tired.

“It’s good. This place is really sad.”

“ _Yeah. Yeah, it is._ ”

Caboose sighs. He hears a very distant, very familiar sadness in Wash, sometimes. He thinks if they talked about it, they’d probably be missing a lot of the same things. Sisters and home. The people they used to be and the people they were supposed to become. Caboose breathes and smells _moon dust_ , before he gets to the last floor of the building and finds it...relatively untouched.

Like...no one was even here.

The furniture is still in place, though it’s collected years worth of dust. The photos are largely intact, disturbed only by the explosions that rocked this place, once upon a time. Caboose leans down and picks up a cracked frame and puts it back on its nail in the wall. It refuses to hang straight, but that’s alright. Nothing really needs to be perfect. It’s a miracle this place is even here.

 _Maybe I’m dreaming_ , he thinks. _Maybe this part isn’t real._ He’s sort of wandered into that kind of space before. Sometimes his dreams of the moon or Blood Gulch are so _real_ he thinks maybe the rest of his life is the made up parts. The pieces his brain is creating.

He’d miss Wash, if that were true. And Smith. And a lot of people on Chorus. They’re nice to him, they trust him. They _rely_ on him.

He starts moving around the apartment, imagining who might have lived here. Their photos are dusty and hard to make out, but they seemed happy, once. Caboose thinks about their prefab on the moon, how he shared it with a few of his sisters until they were twelve or so, then his parents got a bigger one and Caboose got to have his own space. A child lived here, he realizes, standing in a doorway, looking into a room. There are blocks in the corner, and a shelf full of books. The blankets have tigers on them.

Caboose closes his eyes.

His sheets on the moon had dogs on them.

But there’s nothing up here for him to find. These buildings don’t have bombs in them. They’re just...empty. They’re cold and sad and dusty and Caboose wonders if someone will eventually make them beautiful again, make them _homes_ again. He’s wondering what it might have been like to live here when a staircase on the balcony catches his eye.

There no door to go through. He steps right outside and climbs the stairs. It feels like ascending a ship, or what climbing onto a boat might feel like, though he’s never really been to the ocean, or seen an actual boat. Pictures, though. He knows what they _should_ look like.

And so, while he’s imagining himself climbing the gangplank of a ship bound for some distant land, he isn’t quite _there_ when he climbs onto the roof.

So what he sees...surprises him.

It’s just _plants._ Plants growing into other plants, climbing over one another, reaching out with desperate vines toward the sun. Caboose stands among the leaves and reaches up to take his helmet off without thought. He has to _see_ them. He has to smell them, touch them. His gloves come off as he drops his helmet, takes a few steps forward, and kneels by a pot of bluebells, growing over and out, growing into another pot of vines next to it.

He sees flowers against his bare palm for the first time in years, and the noise he makes could be mistaken for a sob, he knows it. And the shaking in his shoulders is just laughter, but someone might think he’s crying.

And the tears in his eyes and running down his cheeks might be mistaken for something tragic, but it’s only because there’s beauty here, in all this rubble and destruction, and not for the first time that day —

He misses his family.

Caboose closes his eyes, smells the flowers, and really does cry.

“ _Caboose!_ ” Wash’s voice isn’t over the radio, it’s carrying up the stairs. Wash appears over the edge of the balcony and says, “I’ve been radioing you for five minutes, you didn’t—”

Caboose turns. Wash’s gun hangs limply in his hands.

“...What…”

“Look.” Caboose extends his hand to Wash, who takes it and lets himself be drawn forward. “Look what I found.”

Wash takes off _his_ helmet now, something he almost never does. Caboose watches as he kneels down and reaches out, touching a gloved hand to a happy, bright green leaf.

“I can’t believe it survived,” Wash murmurs.

Caboose shrugs. “Some things are meant to survive, Wash.” He turns to him. “You know that.”

Wash looks at him sharply. Caboose turns back to the flowers.

“I’m glad this is here.”

Wash nods. He reaches down and picks up Caboose’s helmet. “You should wear this.” He puts his own back on. “And you should take one of these with you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Wash points. “You want a flower or a vine?”

“...A vine.” Caboose stands with Wash who leans over some of the pots and picks one out, pressing it into Caboose’s hands. “Thank you.” He looks at it and sees how _alive_ it is. “...What if it dies?”

“Well, you’ll have to take care of it. I’m sure you can do that, Caboose. Really.” Wash puts a hand on his shoulder. “Come on. We’re all done here for today.”

Caboose nods and sets the plant down to put his gloves and helmet back on before picking up the pot and holding it close to his chest. He does that all the way to the ship, and when Tucker asks why he has a _plant_ , of all things, Caboose just shrugs.

“I found it.”

“Where?”

“On a rooftop.”

Tucker shakes his head. “This planet is so weird.” He looks back at Caboose. “It’s a nice plant.”

“Yes.” Caboose smiles. “Yes it is.”

 

* * *

 

He puts the plant in his window, and figures out how to care for it.

It needs water, but not too much. It needs sunlight, but just enough. It probably _doesn't_  need for Caboose to tell it good morning, or to say hello when he walks into his room, but Wash told him his mom used to grow things and she would spend lots of time in the garden, sweet talking flowers into blooming, or trees into growing taller.

“Do you miss her?” Caboose asks.

Wash nods. “I do.”

“Yeah. I miss my mom, too.” He pushes his food around on his tray in the mess, no longer hungry. “I’m going for a run.”

Wash looks up from his own food. “You okay?”

“Yes.” Caboose gets up and tosses his tray. Ever since the rooftop, he just can focus, he can’t think. He takes care of his plant, he does the work he’s asked to do, and he runs. He makes circles around the base, focusing on the beat of his sneakers on the track. Simmons keeps telling him he needs to get someone to order him some new shoes, that losing the tread is bad for him, but Caboose spent his life growing up and using things until he couldn’t use them anymore.

The shoes are fine.

Caboose is...fine. He’s fine.

Back in his room, he showers and changes and paces. He feels antsy, like he’s got too much energy, but it’s all being sapped. Caboose opens a window, watches the breeze push the leaves of his plant back and forth. He wants to talk to Church, but Church is gone. He could talk to Carolina, but she’s been working on something with Kimball, and he doesn’t want to bother her. With a heavy sigh, he stretches out on his bed and closes his eyes.

 

* * *

 

“ _Caboose._ ”

Cold hands are shaking him awake.

“ _Dude, he’s totally out._ ”

“ _It’s been all day, this isn’t like him._ ”

Simmons. And Grif. Caboose tries to push them away. He doesn’t need them bickering around him right now, he’s tired and his body _aches._

“ _Grif, he’s burning up. We should call someone. We should get Grey._ ”

Their voices keep getting further away. Caboose groans and tries to roll over, but nothing. He feels like he’s on fire.

“ _—get Tucker, I guess._ ”

Yeah, Caboose wants to say. Get Tucker. Tucker will probably know. Tucker’s been sick and he’s been stabbed and he’s been lonely. Tucker’s stupid, but he’ll get it. He’ll understand.

When Caboose wakes up for real again, he’s not in his room, which kind of sucks. He’s in the hospital, and Dr. Grey is hovering beside his bed, checking his chart. She looks over when he moves and she smiles. It’s softer than what Caboose is used to from her, and her touch on his wrist is careful.

“Just relax, captain.”

“I don’t...I don’t feel good.”

“You’ve come down with a bit of a bug and it hit you pretty hard.”

“I went...for a run.”

Dr. Grey nods. “I know, and that’s alright. Are you thirsty?” Caboose shakes his head. “Then I’m going to leave this here.” Caboose looks at his arm, where the needle is pumping fluids into his body. He sighs and falls back against his pillows. He doesn’t like hospitals. They’re annoying and slow and bright. The one on the moon was small. The one here is angry. People injured, people dying. Caboose rolls away from Dr. Grey and closes his eyes.

“...If you need me, just ask,” she says kindly, before leaving his room.

 

* * *

 

“Can you bring my plant?”

Wash was in the middle of reading from one of his books, which is fine except they’re boring and dorky and about captains on Mars and they kind of put Caboose to sleep —

“What?”

“My plant. Can you bring it here? I’m worried about it.”

Wash sets the book down. “Yeah, I can do that.” He leans forward, reaching out to fix the sheet on Caboose’s bed. “You doing okay bud?”

“I’m sad.”

“About what?”

“Just...I don’t know. There was a war, and I feel like this place is kind of my home, but I feel like my home is always changing and I feel like I can’t…” Caboose takes a breath, which is hard because he’s been coughing a lot. Dr. Grey says he got bronchitis, too. He turns to Wash. “ _I_ want to be like a plant. I want to have roots. I want to be somewhere and grow. Is that...do I sound dumb?”

Wash smiles. “No. You don’t sound dumb.” He stands and reaches out to brush the hair from Caboose’s forehead. “I wish I could grow some roots, too.”

Caboose nods. “Maybe later. Maybe...maybe after.”

“Yeah. Maybe after.”

It’s Tucker who brings his plant by later, with Carolina.

Caboose sits up straighter. “You’re back,” he says. “I—” He starts coughing and isn’t really sure if he can stop. At some point, Dr. Grey comes into the room and places a mask over his face, a hand on his back, and asks him to breathe. It’s _exhausting_ , and he falls asleep before he can thank Tucker, and say hi to Carolina.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes up, there’s no one there, but he feels a familiar presence and smiles.

“Hey, Church.”

 _Hey, Caboose._ Church sighs. _You got sick, huh?_

“Yeah. But I’m getting better.”

_Grey said you were just worn out._

“I’m pretty tired.” Caboose rolls over and catches sight of his plant. It’s grown a lot, since they brought it back. He reaches out and touches one of the leaves. “Did you see my plant?”

_It’s nice._

Caboose closes his eyes. “Do you...remember my Blood Gulch stories?”

_I do. They were my favorite._

“I miss it, sometimes. Everything was really simple.”

_It felt that way._

“I want roots,” he murmurs. “I want to plant myself into the ground. I want to _grow._ ”

_I think your fever’s coming back, buddy._

Church’s presence fades. A nurse comes in and takes his temperature, makes that noise they always make when it’s too high. It’s not the first time he’s seen Church when he’s not there, or anyone for that matter. Yesterday his mother was standing in the doorway, and his father was pacing at the foot of his bed. He saw Flowers, once. He saw Felix skulking in the corner. He swore he heard the buzz of Freckles by his ear.

“I need to see the rooftop again.” He closes his eyes and breathes. “Just...one more time.”

 

* * *

 

Wash doesn’t want him to go.

“You’re not well enough to travel. You were sick, you should have stayed in the hospital.”

“Dr. Grey said I was better. I just want to see the garden again.”

Wash shakes his head. “You’ve got to stop fixating on that. There’s nothing we can do, they’re going to tear that building down.”

“Those _plants_ —”

“They’re just plants!” Wash says. “God, Caboose, what do you want to do? You want to get a ship and bring them all back?”

Caboose nods. “Yes. I want to.”

“Oh my god.” Wash sits in a chair and puts his face in his hands. They’re supposed to be leaving Chorus soon, supposed to be going somewhere else. Caboose goes and kneels by him.

“I know it’s very weird. I know I sound a little crazy—” Wash looks up sharply. “But ever since I found them...it’s all I think about. I’m so _tired_ Wash. I’m so tired, and I want to do something before we go. Before we rest.”

Wash nods. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

 

* * *

 

They all go back. And Caboose gets to show the garden to everyone.

They sit there, in their armor, helmets off, basking in green. Caboose catches Sarge brushing something from the corner of his eye before he carefully cradles a rose in his palm. They have the ship hover above the building and pass the plants up into it, until the rooftop is bare, save for one, browning daisy. Caboose picks it up and sets it on the ledge, facing the sunset.

“Not this one?” Wash asks.

Caboose shakes his head. “I think this is one we say goodbye to. And we let it say goodbye, too.”

“I like that. Helmets on Caboose.”

“Right.”

Wash follows him back onto the ship, and Caboose sits in the cargo hold among the plants, proud of his choice.

 

* * *

 

They’re going somewhere, he knows that. A place called Iris, a beautiful moon far away from here, Kimball says. She tells Caboose she’ll miss him, when he brings six plants into her office.

“And I’ll take good care of these.”

Caboose nods. “I know you will.”

Dr. Grey gets a few of her own, and so do all the Lieutenants. Katie hugs him tight when he hands over the orange rose in a terracotta pot, promising to make it grow even bigger.

“I hope I see you again, captain.”

“Maybe someday.”

Smith gets one, too, and he stands at attention until Caboose tells him to relax before they both go in for a hug.

“You’re an amazing soldier, sir. But you...you are a very _good_ person. I hope you understand that.”

Caboose nods. “You are, too, Lieutenant. I’ll miss you very much.”

 

* * *

 

The rest of the plants, they bring to Iris for themselves.


End file.
